


Cold Hands, Warm Hearts

by Her_Madjesty



Series: Anastasia - Daemons [2]
Category: Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen, Humor, M/M, Pre-Musical Canon, Russian swearing, Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 13:20:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13365555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Her_Madjesty/pseuds/Her_Madjesty
Summary: “Dima,” Vlad says, patting Dmitry’s knee. “I am going to teach you how to lie.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is such an odd fic - I wanted to explore Dmitry and Vlad's relationship a little more as well as their introduction to the world of the con. Hope you like what I've got! XOXO

They can’t afford a flat. The manager of the Kvartira Complex tells them as much without allowing them to see an application; he takes a long look at Vlad’s ragged coat, at Dmitry’s blue fingers, at the shaking of both their daemons, and ushers them back out onto the street.

“It is nothing personal, comrades,” he says, pulling his own coat tight. “Try the Bednyye, or the south bank of the Neva; if you’re smart about it, you’ll be able to stay warm.”

“Hey – hey!” Dmitry tries to chase after him as he steps back inside the building, but Vlad’s hand comes down on his shoulder, and Daria moves to block his path. Dmitry blinks back tears and glances down at the chimpanzee. She shifts from foot to foot, too cold to hold still for long, but she refuses to move out of his way.

“это пиздец,” he mutters, drawing a startled look from a woman passing by. Vlad shakes his head at the curse and pulls a cigarette from his coat pocket before smiling and bumming a light off a stranger.

Dmitry kicks at a snowbank and swears again as his boot and sock soak through. “This is ridiculous!” he says, throwing his hands up in the air. “What do they want us to do, freeze to death?”

“It’s social cleansing,” Vlad says, blowing a trail of smoke into the air. “Blame economics, blame politics, blame something.” He glances down and brushes cigarette ash off of his coat. “Maybe we should have worn something better.”

“Or maybe this damn regime should have thought things through before it gutted local businesses,” Dmitry bites out. He runs a hand through his hair before shoving his freezing digits into his pockets. At his side, Elizaveta continues to brutalize the snowbank, tearing into it with her tusks. Dmitry watches her with a grim satisfaction that threatens to sizzle away into despair.

Behind him, Daria climbs up onto Vlad’s broad shoulders and wrinkles her nose as he continues to burn down his cigarette. “Come, now, Dima,” Vlad says, affection still new to his tongue. “Let’s walk awhile. Perhaps some old пизда will take pity on us and let us sleep on his floor.”

Elizaveta looks up from the snowbank and blinks at him as he starts to walk away. Dmitry bites his tongue and waits as she trots back to his side. Melted snow has started to refreeze on her face; she shakes her head to clear the worst of it away from her eyes and shoots Dmitry a murderous look.

“I know,” Dmitry mutters. “We’ll get him later, I promise.”

He doesn’t mean for Vlad to hear, but the man does, and he laughs. “And how will you manage that?” he asks, pausing long enough for Dmitry and Elizaveta to catch up. “Daria and I had you cleaned off in a matter of moments, and you expect that you’ll be able to manage a con – how? Have you learned the art of thievery through osmosis?”

“I don’t even know what that is,” Dmitry snaps. “And no.” He kicks a stray rock and lets Elizaveta sneer at it. “Let me blow off some steam, won’t you?”

Vlad shakes his head, and next to him, Daria snickers. “Come now,” he says, reaching out. The butt of his cigarette falls into the snow. Dmitry stares at his outstretched arm, one eyebrow creeping upward. Vlad waits, then lets his wrist flop in the air until Dmitry breaks and chuckles. He steps forward and takes Vlad’s arm before shoving his hands back into his pockets. They walk linked together, sharing warmth in the cold.

“There are more important people we can turn out attention to,” Vlad tells him, smiling as they pass one of the evening’s street sweepers. “Ourselves, first of all. I know a place that might house us, if only for a little while.”

“Oh, yeah?” Dmitry grumbles. “Where?”

Vlad’s smile is a soft and terrible thing. He looks at Dmitry, then directs his gaze towards the spiraling towers of Yusupov Palace, sitting empty some miles in the distance.

At their feet, Elizaveta lets out a long groan. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

*

Yusupov Palace takes them in with surprisingly little resistance, despite the border patrol that circles it twice an hour. Dmitry takes his hands out of his pockets in order to wrench open one of the exterior doors and regrets it at once, but he ushers Vlad, Daria, and Elizaveta inside, keeping a careful eye on the boundary between Petersburg and the grounds. He follows in after them and forces the door shut, then leans back on it and exhales mist into the cool air.

“Keep moving, Dima,” Elizaveta orders, nudging her snout against his boots.

“I thought you thought this was stupid,” Dmitry mutters.

“It is stupid,” Elizaveta snorts, “but it’s the best chance we’ve got for warmth.”

Dmitry rubs a frozen hand over his face, then pushes off of the door.

Vlad, several meters ahead, holds Daria close as he pushes through the debris. He gathers up a stray, rotting blanket and fixes it around the chimpanzee’s shoulders, then glances back and waits for Dmitry to catch up.

“It’s been gutted,” he says, mournful and nostalgic. “These rooms used to glow.”

“That’s the benefit of fire,” Dmitry grumbles. He nudges Vlad’s shoulder as he walks past, out of the kitchens and into an expansive hall.

“We’ll have the best of luck in the residential suites,” Vlad tells him. “There might be more blankets left. Oh, maybe even a mattress!”

“Somehow, I doubt that,” Elizaveta grumbles.

“Oh, cheer up,” Vlad calls, his voice echoing off the halls.

Dmitry and Elizaveta exchange a glance, and Dmitry feels a pang of - something, deep in his chest.

They take fractured stone steps past the ballroom and into the familial chambers. Vlad moans at the sight of broken down cots and a stray, burst pillow. Dmitry spares these fineries a glance, but keeps pressing forward, gathering the remnants of coats and torn curtains as they move from room to room. By the time they settle in the largest set of chambers, Elizaveta’s back is well protected from the chill in the air, and Dmitry’s fashioned a scarf out of scraps of silk and pillow cases. Vlad, by some luck, finds a pair of children’s socks and hurries them onto Daria’s feet, saving for himself a long jacket with its tails torn off.

“What do you think?” he asks, as Dmitry collapses into a fractured chair. “A little too big for me, I think, but the tsar was a tall man.”

“You look too fine for a place like this.” Dmitry allows himself the smallest of laughs as Vlad twirls. Daria leaps from his shoulders and moves about the room, giggling as Vlad dances about. After a moment of scrounging, she brings him a thin piece of cloth. Vlad kisses her forehead and wraps it around his neck in a mockery of a tie. Dmitry watches him struggle for several moments before rolling his eyes and rising.

“Let me do that,” he says, batting Vlad’s hands away from his throat.

“Oh, sure,” Vlad says, forcing a sigh. “It’s not like I did it on my own for several years or anything.”

“Yes, but I suspect your hands were warmer, then,” Dmitry replies. He bites his lip and works the cloth into knots, chasing the memory of his father’s hands doing the same.

When he finishes, he straightens Vlad’s makeshift bowtie and leaves it with a pat, stepping back to admire his handiwork. Vlad preens and runs a hand through his mop of hair.

“A proper gentleman,” Dmitry says, after a beat. “If you’d have dressed like that, we would have had a flat tonight.”

“Ah, but instead, we have a palace.” Vlad smiles like a child, and despite the wrinkles around his eyes, Dmitry swears he looks several years younger. He fights back a smile as he resettles himself in his chair.

“So,” Vlad says, bringing his hands together, “though our shelter may be as grandiose as we deserve, I do believe that it would benefit us to make something of a living in the future, yes?”

Dmitry snorts. “Like I’d argue that.”

“Good.” Vlad’s smile doesn’t fade, and Dmitry’s struck by a shock of amusement and raw affection. Elizaveta presses herself against his lower legs, then settles, while Daria blinks, long and slow, from her perch near the ceiling.

“I will have quite a bit to teach you, you know,” Vlad continues, stepping forward. “I’ve met men softer than you, though, so at least we’ll have a base, and if you don’t mind me saying, I am _quite_ the teacher.”

“And you’ll be teaching me to do what, exactly?” Dmitry asks.

Vlad’s smile grows lopsided, perhaps a bit coy. “Dima, Dima,” Vlad says, shaking his head. “You are to be my protégé.”

“Your what?”

“My student! My inheritor! The legacy I leave behind!” Vlad winks, then comes to rest on his knees in front of Dmitry’s chair. Dmitry watches him, one eyebrow creeping upward, but he doesn’t push the other man away. Elizaveta lifts her head and watches him out of the corner of her eye.

“Dima,” Vlad says again, patting Dmitry’s knee. “I am going to teach you how to lie.”

Dmitry stares at the man, then forces himself to swallow. He winces as Daria comes to land on the hair behind him, and the whole of the room seems to shudder.

“Okay,” he says, and grimaces as his voice breaks. He clears his throat and shifts, letting Vlad’s hand slide off of his knee. “Yeah, okay,” he repeats. “When do we start?”

Elizaveta, at his feet, glances up at Daria. The chimpanzee stares back and, after a moment, winks.

Down on his knees, Vlad lets out a laugh. “How about now?”


	2. Chapter 2

Wild boars are not uncommon daemons to see in Leningrad née Petersburg, but they are – distinctive. “She's not exactly conducive to the work I do,” Vlad admits, watching Elizaveta pace across a royal bedchamber, “but I’m sure we’ll think of some way to hide her. At least, for this first con.”

Dmitry and his daemon exchange suspicious looks. Vlad, occupied, ignores them.

Twelve hours later, when Dmitry positions himself on a nameless street corner, he covers the bottom half of his face with an over-large newspaper, an amalgamation of several days’ stories and Bolshevik propaganda. Elizaveta sits comfortably at his side, playing unawares to the attention she and Dmitry draw, all the while refusing to move off of the bulk of the sidewalk.

Vlad, across the street and already pretending not to know them, exercises all of his considerable patience to keep himself from sighing.

He readjusts the vase he has tucked underneath his arm and pulls on the collar of his coat. He lets his gaze rest of Dmitry for a beat longer, maybe two, before focusing on the street, instead. Above his head, along the rooftop, Daria settles herself against the brick, her keen eyes watching the streets.

Since the arrival of the Bolsheviks, cars have become – less practical, but there are a few lingering individuals out for a drive. Vlad adjusts his borrowed hat on his head when one – covered in slush, but still a fetching shade of teal – glides into view.

The tires squeal against the packed snow. Vlad takes a deep breath and steps into the mess of the road, quietly praying that nothing too important breaks.

From a window above him, a woman gasps.

The car swerves.

Vlad braces.

When the front of the car bumps his thigh, he collapses, forcing the breath from his lungs while letting the vase beneath his arm shatter into a dozen pieces.

(Dmitry, from behind his newpaper, bites the inside of his cheek to keep from swearing. Above their heads, on the Leningrad rooftops, Daria lets out a whimper from behind one of her furry hands.)

“Охуе́ть!” the driver shouts, tearing out of his car. “Are you alright? Are you dead?”

“Would I be able to answer you if I was dead?” Vlad grumbles. He struggles himself to his feet, then mimes surprise as he brushes crumbled porcelain off of his jacket. “Count Vasiliev!”

Count Vasiliev reaches up to adjust an askew hair piece before hushing him. Still, Vlad sees some of the anger drain from his face. “Just Andre, now, I’m afraid,” he says, leaning in to close the distance between them. “They’ve divided up my land, you see – fifty years, and all of my grandfather’s hard work now belongs to the government.”

“Ridiculous,” Vlad scoffs.

“I agree.” Vasiliev nods. “But are you hurt, old friend? I thought you would have left the country with the rest of our lot.”

“Oh, I’m fine.” As he speaks, Vlad stumbles forward in a mimic of a limp. Vasiliev catches him before he falls. “But the vase!” Vlad whines. “I was gifted that vase by the Romanovs themselves!”

He looks up and tries to make eye contact with Dmitry, but the man is crushed behind a wall of bystanders, all of them whispering to one another.

Vlad does not swear. Instead, he watches Vasilviev glance back at the ruins of the vase, now resting haplessly in the street. From the passenger’s seat of the ex-count’s car, a small, furred head appears: a house cat, her long, white fur pristinely groomed.

“You’re having me on,” Vasiliev says, while in the background, his daemon begins to preen.

“I wish I was,” Vlad replies, glancing again towards Dmitry. “I was going to sell it today – I am left with nothing, anymore; it was the last piece of propriety I had.”

Finally, finally, Dmitry takes his cue. He throws his paper in the face of one of the men loitering on the sidewalk and storms into the street.

“Hey!” he shouts (and Vlad has to press his lips together to keep himself from smiling). “What do you think you’re doing, driving around like that? You could have killed this man!” His hand comes down on Vlad’s shoulder, and Vlad offers up another wince.

“I am perfectly within my rights to drive as I please,” Vasilviev says, losing his grip on Vlad. When Vlad stumbles again, Dmitry pushes him upright, radiating heat through his too-thin coat.

Vasilviev looks between the two men and does his best not to grimace.

“Look at him,” Dmitry says as Elizaveta trots over to Vlad’s side. “He’s injured!”

“Now, hold on,” Vasilviev says. “Vlad, tell this young cretin that you’re fine.”

“It’s alright, boy,” Vlad says, attempting to rise back to his full height and failing. “The count here just made a mistake, that’s all.”

“A count?” Dmitry sneers (and it’s an ugly expression, one that Vlad almost regrets teaching him). “It’d be a fine time reporting you to the Bolsheviks, now wouldn’t it?”

“Excuse me?” Vasilviev stumbles back, affronted.

“Now, I’m sure that’s not necessary,” Vlad starts to say.

“And that’s good of you, comrade.” Only Vlad knows how much the epithet strains the boy to say. “But this man should not escape without seeing justice.”

“Excuse me!” Vasilviev says again. He glances down at the vase, still scattered in the street, then to the crowd of bystanders shooting glances his way. With a grim expression, he focuses on Dmitry, pulling the man close. “Now listen,” he says, reaching into his coat, “if you _stop talking_ , and do not report me, these rubles will be yours.” He presses the currency into Dmitry’s hands without waiting for a response. “And Vlad, old friend,” Vasilviev continues, “if you could find it in the goodness of your heart not to report me, I will buy that vase off of you.”

Vlad forces a sputter. “What do you mean?” he asks. “It’s broken!”

Vasilviev lets out a huff, then deliberately moves around Elizaveta, still rumbling angrily at Vlad’s feet. Inside his car, his house cat leaps up onto the dashboard to better observe the proceedings. When Daria slams down onto the car’s hood, the cat shrieks and ducks back out of sight.

Vasilviev eyes the chimp warily as she approaches Vlad, but he doesn’t stop gathering up the pieces of the vase. “My friend,” he says, scooting closer to Vlad. “Please. Take these rubles. I promise they will be more than enough to get you into a hospital, should you need medical attention; they’re more than you’ll get for this vase, if nothing else.”

Vlad blinks until tears begin in his eyes – a strain, but the count’s flushed expression is worth it. “Much appreciated, old friend,” he says, tucking the rubles into his jacket. He spares a dramatic glance towards the crowd before focusing on Dmitry. “Run along, boy,” he says, shooing Dmitry away. “Thank you for your concern.”

Dmitry chews on his bottom lip, and Vlad can see him assessing him for any actual injuries. Elizaveta stays firmly planted at his feet, even as Dmitry himself begins to back away. “Thanks for your kindness, _Count Vasilviev_ ,” he says before turning his back on the scene. “Make sure you drive safe today.”

Vlad sees Vasilviev narrows his eyes as he watches Dmitry’s parting back, and he fakes a stumble as Daria comes to rest on his shoulder.

“Thank you, indeed,” he says, as Vasilviev rises. “Be safe, old friend.”

“And you, as well.” Vasilviev gathers the remnants of the Romanov vase to his chest and offers Vlad a sliver of a smile.

Vlad limps his way back to the sidewalk as the count clambers back into his car. He sets himself down and watches as the teal streak disappears and, around him, the crowd of bystanders begins to disperse.

Across the street, he sees the last of Elizaveta’s tail disappear around a corner.

Vlad presses a hand to his mouth as Daria chirps in his ear and allows himself a secret smile.

“That was risky, old man,” the chimpanzee whispers, pressing her soft nose to the shell of Vlad’s ear.

“It was worth it,” Vlad murmurs back. “Come. Let’s get some tea before heading home.”

*

“I can’t believe that worked,” Dmitry says, later, when the four of them have returned to the confines of Yusupov Palace. He flits around Vlad’s side, with Elizaveta not far behind, checking without touching the man for any bruises.

“Relax,” Vlad says, though he makes no move to push Dmitry away. He takes up in the younger man’s chair, instead, and is delighted when Dmitry doesn’t complain. “You have to make sacrifices in plays like that,” he admits. “Sacrifices that I may be getting too old for.”

“Well, then next time, you should let me get hit by the car,” Dmitry says. “Can’t have you breaking anything you can’t fix.”

Vlad lets out a loud laugh, then immediately glances towards the doorway. “We’ll be trying something different next time, instead,” he says, unable to force down his smile. “We shouldn’t be working the same jobs too close together, now should we? We don’t want to get predictable.”

Dmitry settles himself on a crushed pillow some inches away Vlad’s feet, then invites Elizaveta to settle her head in his lap. Daria, across the room, makes a nest for herself in the palace’s rafters, gathering loose fabric around her for warmth.

Vlad smiles up at her, then, tentatively, reaches out and ruffles Dmitry’s hair. The other man shrugs the gesture off, but Vlad sees him smile, all the same.

“We’ll have enough to get ourselves a real meal tomorrow,” Dmitry says, digging into his pockets to count out Vasilviev’s rubles.

“I should hope so,” Vlad agrees, only to be interrupted by a yawn. Dmitry rolls his eyes, but Vlad can feel the affection rolling off of him in waves and decides to ignore the gesture – for now. “Perhaps you can buy, yes? A gift for your fine teacher.”

Dmitry snorts and smacks one of Vlad’s legs. Vlad fakes a wince, reaching down and grabbing it, but Dmitry only laughs.

“Yeah, alright,” he says, glancing up towards the man. Vlad glances back and is struck, for a moment, by the way the evening light plays on Dmitry’s face. “I suppose you’ve earned it.”

“He supposes,” Vlad says to the empty air. Above his head, Daria titters out a laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have mixed feelings about this chapter, honestly, but it's 3:14am, and I'd like to go to bed. Let me know what you thought!

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought!


End file.
